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This summer was not very bikey. Although I did mundane stuff on my bike because we need food and toothpaste. We didn't really go our of our way to plan bike days. Instead we did a lot of walking, I might have burned some holes in my sneakers and we have a whole album of adventures our tiny group of mostly well behaved kids.

I started one of my classes at the beginning of August. Setting up my work space and computer was an adventure setting it up. My router decided to die and I got to experiment with a new computer. Windows charms, not so charming. We are well into August and my technical issues have been resolved. Today my kid starts school and it is going to be interesting getting to school without our bike. I think I made our summer a little too fun that when the principle called to check up I admitted that my kid was not interested in going back to school. Our family made the choice of not having a car and now that I look at the calendar my kid really only has school for nine …

Remember my rat problem? Turns out a big machine called "Big Bertha" is boring a new hole in downtown and digging up all the rat homes so they have decided to make Pioneer Square their new home. EWWW!

They are like the huge Norwegian rats living in our yard and posters are up in Pioneer warning of the impending Sven rat. Watch out. Scandinavian rats are here FOREVER! I wonder when they will make themselves at home in Ballard just like human Scandinavians?

Now what I hope is that the rats don't get bright ideas and come die in my yard. We have taken a lot of shrubbery away and I am collecting cardboard for my new cardboard weed covering project. I was inspired by one of my neighbors bringing his extra cardboard to my yard. I hope he understands that I don't do the same kind of gardening like I do in the winter. I hate sweat so I wake up early, water my plants once or twice a week and leave it alone.
You like all the places for rats to hide. Well, what bothered me most…

As our summer of walking we have noticed lots of new things in the city I am too lazy to stop on my bike at. On our way back from visiting the office of Car2Go last week we walked to the Olympic Sculpture park on Elliot Bay. The new art installation is a roof. Olympic Sculpture park is the kind of place you can interact with art, including climbing on it. I didn't really prepare ourselves for our new interaction. Apparently the roof art requires that you have rubber soled sneakers and be at least 10 years of ago. My daughter likes sandals so she was snubbed and pretty bummed about the whole thing.

Instead I decided to stand on the roof alone and take a picture. Here I am standing on the roof.

After standing on the roof we walked from the park to downtown. While walking into Belltown we noticed lots of interesting stores and businesses but they all had one problem. Most of these places were obstructed by huge cars, like this one:

I promised to update you on a list of topics so here is our rat story.

This summer the rat population increased exponentially, to the point where one Shabbos I saw 16 hanging out all over our front yard. It was so disgusting. It was bad. The next day I ventured out to Lowes and purchased rat bait stations with poison secured inside. I met a woman at the store who was also purchasing bait stations so she could be out in her garden without having something fuzzy come running out of the bushes at her.

I put my bait stations out and waited, nothing. The next solution was to fill all those pesky holes the rats decided to next in. So, I got rock and gravel and filled up the holes. This seemed to have reduced the population but then we started to get our rat of the week.

Week#1

Does that look like a bait station? NO! Somehow this ended up under the plum tree and I got the honors of bagging it for posterity.

Week #2 we got this one, convulsing and dying in front of the door. We did the only nic…

Someone new to my biking blog may have noticed the content change. Like I said before, I am just adding to my rainbow of information. In any case, everything is related to biking. My pedal forward into online learning through SLIS is very exciting. I am the kind of person who likes seder(order). I like schedules but I am also flexible to recognize when something is not working and switch it up last minute. I like deadlines and find that they motivate and push me. I am a problem solver. If I can't figure it out I look everywhere for the answer and am not afraid to ask questions.Are you also ready to take the leap to learn online then do this survey. It might surprise you: Are you ready to learn online? What else comes with learning in general? Collaboration and Teams. Are those nasty words to you? For anyone who has had a job then you have experienced "Teams". After watching two online videos for my course I realized I was never in a real "team" I was insomething…

So, I try to write funny and entertaining post that can be read in the privacy of the bathroom but it has been hard this summer.

Besides riding my bike and waving frantically to everyone I meet, I have taken to working on my next career move. For most of my life I have had a special way of finding jobs where I was involved with libraries. On one of those desperate moments when one of the two adults needed a job I somehow managed to become the part-time library assistant at a public middle school. I loved that job. I found it exciting to do all the duties related to the library, including covering the books. After a 2 years of doing that I had to move on because when you work in public schools you get the yearly ulcer of your job put in the special category of limbo.

I worked another job which was entertaining but nothing related to libraries so I quit and decided to start a graduate program. So this year I start all courses related to a Master's in Library Science.

The other day we went on a bus quest to find kosher steak at Trader Joe's. Yes, you can get kosher meat at Trader Joe's. I know a lot of people think this is impossible and schelpping all the way to Mercer Island is necessary. I don't like going anywhere where I can't multitask and Mercer Island is lacking in anything I really need except HUGE blocks of munster cheese.

On our way back home we walked through Cal Anderson Park, admired the fountain and then tried to walk to Gamestop because a certain little person in the house earned enough money to buy herself a DS game. On our way to Broadway we were met by a really nice construction lady directing us to walk on the bikeway/cycle track under construction. The whole bikeway is being done in pieces and had we not stumbled through the park we would have never known.

Here is my kid walking on the track, TADA!
Can you see the excitement? Look at the barrier. It is not just a painted lane. I drooled and oohed and awwed whil…